The sorry tale of coal pickers of Sabarmati in Ahmedabad

Eleven-year-old Manu Bokhar should have been at school or out enjoying the sunshine with her little friends. Instead for eight long hours a day, she picks load after load of coal at Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. Draped precariously around her blackened body is a torn piece of cloth improvised as a sari.

After dark, she trudges back home dragging a heavy shovel behind her. Next morning, early, she is back at work again. Manu has missed her childhood and already attained a practical, grown-up wisdom. "If I go to school," she asks, "what will we eat?"

Home for Manu is a slum in Ranip, a suburb of Ahmedabad. Her neighbours - 800 coal pickers brought from poverty crippled homes in Madhya Pradesh. If they had hoped for life to improve with the change of place - it didn't. Their daily job involves the transferring of about 55 to 58 tonnes of coal from a large wagon into three smaller wagons. That takes about eight strenuous hours. At the end, each group of eight is paid Rs 100 per wagon if it contains 55 tonnes of coal. Sometimes they are paid only Rs 96. Interestingly, the contractor is paid Rs 600 per wagon by the railways.

Nagging Insecurity: Even then, the coal pickers are willing to work - if they get work. There is no certainty. The workers are never made permanent and jobs are distributed on a daily basis with the result that, on an average, a worker works for only around 20 days a month. "Unpleasant workers" are simply kept out.

Since they are constantly at the mercy and whims of their employers, Ranip's wretched coal pickers are unable to make demands and too scared to ask for their rights. Said Kamla Thakore, 25: "We do not dare ask for a raise or a regular job as we will lose what little we have."

Viren Shah, the owner of the Universal Goods Handling Company which has the contract from the railways to handle the coal picking, however, continues to play deaf and blind. He insists that the workers are not being exploited as he has brought them here and given them jobs which they did not otherwise have. Repeatedly he emphasises that all is perfectly well at the dump and that his labour force is very happy with him.

The reality is vastly different. Thirty-year-old Neela Babulal's toe nails got ripped when a huge chunk of coal rolled out of the wagon on to her feet. She was not offered any help and despite Shah's claim that every worker who gets injured on the job gets free medical aid had to bear all the medical expenses herself. Even before she could fully recover, Neela dragged herself back to work. Said she: "We cannot afford to rest. The kitchen fires have to be kept burning."

Quiet Acceptance: Come Diwali and it's time for the annual bonus of Rs 15. Some get it, some don't. Asked one worker bitterly: "The loyal workers are rewarded by daily jobs and crumbs like bonus. How can we ever get the courage to demand our rights?" Worse, the exploitative system is likely to continue since the workers are not united. They come from different areas and seldom see eye to eye.

Moreover, the pervasive sense of insecurity, the day to day fear of not being called back to work keeps them quiet under even the bitterest oppression. Sixty-year-old Mangilal Khupchand, one of the oldest workers, had not been paid for five months. Then, one day, he was simply laid off. Despite repeated pleas he was not given the salary due to him.

There is no office the labourers can approach and no court where they can knock for help since no proof exists of their having worked at the coal dump. Even after payment, the signatures of the workers are not taken. Said Khupchand who has worked as a coal picker for over two decades: "I do not have even a single piece of paper to prove that I have worked all these years. We cannot legally demand anything."

A pregnant worker at the yard: Unending exploitation

Unhealthy Conditions: What Khupchand will carry home, though, like many of his fellow workers, is a severe respiratory disease called pneumoconiosis - perhaps for life. No studies have been done on the pollution hazards to the workers but those working at the dump for over a decade are constantly suffering from respiratory infections.

As a result of constant and continuous exposure to coal, very fine particles of the dust enter through the nose, pass through the lungs and stick to the alveoli (air sacs which bring oxygen into the blood). These air sacs often get inflated and burst. Said B.B. Chatterji, director, National Institute of Occupational Health at Ahmedabad: "For some, it may take a long time for the harm to show."

Even newly born children are exposed to the disease as their mothers have no choice but to bring them to the coal dump. Weaning babies are hung in little cloth cradles under the coal wagons. By the end of the day, a fine film of coal dust collects over their tiny bodies.

Said one helpless mother: "I know that coal dust is harmful but breathing in dust is better than starving." Added Pyarelal Fattu, another worker: "Our children are born in the midst of coal, breathe it all along and grow to become coal pickers. We are destined to live and die like this."

Dirty, makeshift shelters in Ranip have to work as home. When it rains outside, it rains inside too. The whole place gets covered with slush and becomes a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. Water-borne diseases and skin infections leave no slum dweller healthy. Said Laxman Bokhar, 40, a coal picker: "In this basti where over 900 stay, there are only four bulbs. The darkness is symbolic." Nor do they have a single water tap. Every day, potfuls of water have to be brought from the coal dump.

Suffering Children: Out of the 600-odd children in the slums who are below 14, only four attend school. The rest do odd jobs, look after smaller children or work at the coal dump - as they are fated to do. Lamented Nathiram Patel: "We cannot afford the luxury of getting our children educated. One day they will also become coal pickers."

That is, if disease and malnutrition doesn't get them before. Many of the children have weak arms and legs, discoloured thin hair and bloated stomachs. Apart from vitamin D deficiency, they also suffer from marasmus (lack of energy) and kwashiorkor (lack of protein energy). Salita Supidiya, 25, lies helplessly in bed after being hit last month by a shunting wagon. Beside her lies her one-and-a-half-year-old child who looks more like a six-month baby. No doctor has been consulted because there is no money.

There is no faith in doctors either. A mother took her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, suspected of having polio, to a local doctor. She was given a medicine for diarrhoea instead. Said an angry Nandram Sitole: "The doctors and chemists are in league and they cheat us as we are illiterate." Added Ballu Mangilal: "It is better not to go to them."

Touched by the plight of these workers, the Ahmedabad Women's Action Group (AWAG) plans to start a school to impart free education for all children, a creche to look after those little babies hanging under the coal wagons and to see that they get proper nutrition. The response according to Dr Ila Pathak, secretary of AWAG, has been encouraging. Said Khetaji Barot, a coal picker: "Our future depends on whether our children get the privilege of education or not." But it will need more than a school, a creche and a few conscientious women to bring light to this area of darkness.

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